Why slut shaming is such a dirty, potent weapon

Implying a woman is sexually loose may be ridiculously archaic but remains a potent, and highly effective tool to damage her and her credibility. It is dirty and it works.

There is, still, no male equivalent of slut-shaming; the implication that if someone is promiscuous they are of low morals, a bit grubby and less than virtuous is only hung around the necks of women.

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young reflects on the power of the #MeToo movement and how there are a growing number of sexual harassment complaints coming out of universities.

You may think you are open minded, but, as Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said so powerfully on TV last night, when you hear the suggestion someone is a “slut”, there may still be “a little bit (of you), where people go, ‘maybe she is a slut. Maybe that did happen'”, and the harm is done.

It is amazing that a medieval slur on the purity (hence the worth) of a woman that you would have thought went out with witch hunts is not only still around, but still considered a fine weapon to use on political women, in some brutal quarters, at least.

Such is the power of this primal attack, once the target’s sexual mores have been called into question the whiff of something dodgy it is hard to shake. That’s what makes slut shaming so attractive to opportunists reaching right to the back of the gun cupboard, it can, and sometimes does, turn out to be the political equivalent of a head shot (see how it blew up the career of Emma Husar).

Dr Nicola Henry, sexual violence and law reform researcher at RMIT, says the reason making allegations about a woman’s sexual activity is such an effective “tool of degradation and abuse” is because “unwritten rules and expectations about how men and women should behave sexually” persist, even now.

This prejudice may usually remain unspoken, and fly in the face of the apparently free-flowing attitudes to sex in the west generally, but the taboo around women behaving “badly” sexually – ie exercising their sexual agency, liberally (even if only implied and not true) – lurks just beneath the surface.

Says Dr Henry: “For men, there is value attached to them having multiple sexual partners – it’s a badge of honour for many men. But for women, there is value attached to being virginal, pure and submissive.

“It may seem at odds with what we see in music videos, film and women’s magazines (where women are overly sexualised), but the point is that women’s sexuality continues to be policed, monitored and evaluated not only by others within a society, but also by women themselves.” We are conditioned to do so.

“It really comes down to beliefs, values and attitudes, and societal expectations about how men and woman should behave. So women who don’t perform to these standards are socially punished.”

Dr Lauren Rosewarne, Melbourne University senior social sciences lecturer and gender commentator, agrees that slut shaming hits its target’s public image so hard because “(while) women are judged by the extent to which society feels they are worth having sex with, it then devalues them on how much sex they are perceived to be having”.

“We can talk about the ‘slut-stud’ paradox; where men benefit from perceptions they’re sexually attractive (judging by) by how many partners they’ve had, but women are devalued in this context, they become ‘less than’…not because of the number of sexual partners she has, but by the presumptions around it”.

Value is associated with women who are “virtuous, chaste, moral”. Suggesting they are sexually promiscuous, even if it is not true, “disproportionately impacts women”. “A man has a healthy sexual appetite, a woman is a ‘slut’. It comes from religion, this premium places on virginity and motherhood, and has set women up for unattainable standards”.

Dr Rosewarne says this is part of an attempt to keep women in “segregated roles” – namely out of the “man’s game” of politics, as seen by some conservatives. Slut shaming “is a means to punish women for going against the expectations of their gender and into fields where they are not wanted, it serves as a deterrent for others to join in”.

Former sex worker and Victorian MP, Fiona Patten, says slut shaming works so well to hurt the target because “we as a community have deep shame about sex in general; we might exhibit it and see everyone from Madonna to the latest K Pop act being really sexual, but as a community we still do not talk about sex – this is why slut shaming is so effective, and why the majority of women don’t report sexual assault, it is all tied in together”.

“The fact women are autonomous beings does not sit well with with portions of our community,” says Ms Patten.

“The height of hypocrisy in this is, as I said in my inaugural speech, I might be the first sex worker to come into Parliament but thousands of clients have come in before me…the whole room looked at their feet.”